Joy Bryant Bobby
She first burst on to the acting scene in 2002 when Denzel Washington cast her in Antwone Fisher. She won the part over every other beautiful young black actress in Hollywood, despite never having acted before. It was a radical move on Washington’s part (who was making his debut as a director). But his instincts proved spot on and since then the former
Victoria Secrets model has lived up to her mentor’s expectations. In her latest film Joy Bryant plays a telephone receptionist working in the Ambassador Hotel on the day Robert F Kennedy is assassinated in 1968. Directed by former Brat Packer Emilio Estevez, the film boasts a huge ensemble cast (including Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher and Lyndsay Lohen to name a few) yet the gorgeous 30-year-old still manages to stand out in a crowd. Gaynor Flynn caught up with the bubbly Bryant at the Toronto International Film Festival.
How did you come to be involved in this film? Did you
know Emilio Estevez prior to this?
Joy Bryant: No. I knew Nick Canon, and Heather
(Graham) and Lindsay (Lohan) and Joshua (Jackson) and
actually Nick Canon called me up one day and he was
like you know I’m in this great film with Emilio
Estevez and I have this great part you should check it
out and at that point the script was actually coming
to my house already from my agent and I read it and I
was like wow. I went in and read with Nick and Emilio
and it was a while before I actually got the part so
I’m thinking ‘oh god I didn’t get that part’ and I
actually thought I’d heard that someone else got that
part and I was like ‘man she’s lucky’.
You’ve only been acting for a relatively short time,
but you’ve made great choices with Get Rich or Die
Tryin’, Honey, The Skeleton Key. What’s the selection
process for you?
Joy Bryant: I tend to go by my gut when I read
something but there’s been times where there’s been
things I don’t particularly like or I don’t get that
feeling but there’s a reason why I need to do it and
that’s why I have managers and agents who know better
than I do and will kind of be like okay enough with
the artist shit already, you need to do this. And I’m
fortunate enough to come from modelling where I had a
career that paid me very well so I’m not making
choices based on having to pay bills which is a
different set of issues you know. Because sometimes
you have to do things just to pay the bills so it’s
kind of given me that luxury where I can just be more
relaxed about my approach to my career.
Do you feel you have to prove something coming from
the modelling background?
Joy Bryant: Yeah a lot I mean I was a model I went to
my third audition with Denzel (Washington) for Antwone
Fisher, I’d just come back from St Barts from a
Victoria Secrets shoot I’m like hey hi, oh cameras
cool. And I auditioned against every young black
actress in Hollywood and even when I got the part I
would hear people talk and some people thought I’d
compromised myself to get the part, you know what I
mean? Or they’d be like, ‘what does she know she’s
just a model’ because even that’s only five years ago
so is not that long ago when I came into the business
it still wasn’t cool to be a model, its still not cool
now but at least you have people like Diane Kruger,
you have people like James King you have all these
girls who had great modelling careers who’ve come into
this business and do some great stuff.
And some have even won Oscars.
Joy Bryant: Exactly. Go models.
How was it being on the set of Bobby, given there were
so many actors in this film?
Joy Bryant: Well it was like beautifully and really
surreal because you know you go to the Hollywood
parties and you go here and you see these people but I
still get star struck so on the set I was like oh my
god Sharon Stone is standing next to me in craft
service line, hello. And I met Anthony Hopkins and
Harry Belafonte and I seriously could have been their
groupies like just follow them around all day. But
its not intimidating, I think that its just exciting
and its great to be in the company of greatness and
its great to be in the company of people who I respect
and whose careers I’ve watched and who I’ve admired
and who I’ve studied and even if I didn’t have a scene
with them just to be in the company of them
automatically makes we want to be as best as I
possibly can be, so it was really trippy.
How was it like to work with Emilio Estevez?
Joy Bryant: Well again I going oh its Emilio,
Breakfast Club, wow. He was so great and his
enthusiasm was infectious and he worked so hard to get
this movie made and did such a great job but also him
being an actor and now directing, he knows what you
need and how to sort of bring things out and it wasn’t
so much in telling you what to do on set but really
about creating an environment that when you stepped
into it you automatically became a part of it. He
gave everyone reading material and books and pictures
and DVD’s and most people are familiar with that era
but when you see the big screen and you watch the
actual footage of Kennedy’s speech you just like you
were there and so he just created that environment o
he was great, really, really great and he was in the
Breakfast Club. Every time I see him I just want to
squeeze him.
What did you know about Robert F Kennedy?
Joy Bryant: Well I’m an avid reader of history from
when I was in school, I also majored in history in
college, so I knew about the climate of the time, but
I didn’t know the details of that night so being on
set, watching the footage was sort of mind blowing, I
mean everyone’s seen clips of what happened and the
speech but to see it under those conditions gave it a
different spin and I think what the movie stands for
and what I walked away with, having thought I knew a
lot about it was how much an impact Bobby Kennedy had
in his life in terms of inspiring people and giving
hope to the nation. As his brother did as Martin
Luther King did. But then when he died there went that
hope and that inspiration along with him and I think
at least for America the country is still suffering
from the repercussions of that loss, and the only
thing that’s happened is that within a generation or
so history has totally repeated itself in the sense of
what’s going on right now.
Would you say you’re political?
Joy Bryant: Definitely well in the sense that I keep
myself abreast of what’s going on to the best of my
abilities. I mean I’m not going to get on a podium
and deliver some speech for some candidate or anything
but I know what’s going on I know the issues and
what’s possible. I’m not really radical in that sense
I’m not going to stand in front of a tractor or
something like that but I think knowledge is power so
I try to get as much knowledge as I can.
You came from a fairly impoverished background
yourself. Has that been your greatest motivator?
Joy Bryant: Yeah. I wouldn’t want anyone to go
through what I went through. So the more chances
children have to just realise the possibilities that
are out there are great. I drive a hybrid I try to be
energy conscious I’m not like a flag burning
environmentalist but I just try and do my part, do the
best and lend a voice when I can. I help some kids
and also I don’t want to say be a role model but I
carry myself in a way that people can respect and
there might be someone who can take what I do and
where I came from and go wow if she came from there
and she did all those things then I can do it to. You
don’t have to be an actor to do that stuff, just be a
good human being that’s all.
You still model right? Is it difficult to juggle the
two careers?
Joy Bryant: Well I don’t have the same modelling
schedule like I use to when I first started, I’m not
going to St Barts for Victoria Secrets although I
would like to do but I signed a contract with Cover
Girl last year and I’ve shot two campaigns for Ralph
Lauren I mean it is a bit of a release in the sense
that I just have to stand there and look pretty
(laughs). But both jobs kind of feed each other
because before I started even making movies I was just
taking classes and those helped me as a model because
I was never one of those thinking she was so cool kind
of girls. I’m a nerd I dropped out of college to
model, so taking acting classes just helped me to feel
better about myself and to know myself better so that
when I’m standing in front of the camera I’m not all
freaked out, I’m actually owning it. And then with the
modelling what that taught me in acting is how to get
over rejection because the rejection in modelling is
brutal. You’ll never experience that kind of
rejection, not from a lover, not anywhere. Modelling
is a brutal, brutal, cutthroat business so it gave me
that toughness to be able to come in to this business
and be like all right, you don’t want me? Okay that’s
cool, nothing personal, I’ll move on. So they both
feed each other.
Bobby
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Lindsay Lohan, Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Laurence Fishburne, Martin Sheen
In Cinemas March 8th
BOBBY is a fictionalised account of various people whose lives intersect in the hours leading up to and including the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
The film is a journey of the heart that examines the relationships between men and women, between races and the social divisions that have clipped away the foundation of our humanity. We are given a glimpse into how life can be drastically changed in a moment of time, by an indelible event US history.
The characters are ordinary Americans who find themselves at the epicentre of one of the most important incidents of the 20th century.
BOBBY is not a political story, though politics are certainly an undercurrent. It is not the story of Bobby Kennedy (seen solely in newsreel footage). Rather, it is the story of all of us.
BOBBY is seen through the eyes of twenty-two characters. The hope, excitement and notion that a change was in the air, which Kennedy ignited in us all, black and white, rich and poor, young and old was extinguished that evening in June. From young men in their late teens to early twenties, facing the possibility of shipping off to Vietnam, to the retired doorman of the Ambassador, who has greeted the likes of every US President from FDR to Johnson. From the hotel staff to the guests whom occupy the suites, to the "Youth of Kennedy Volunteers", all ages, races and genders are represented in the screenplay.
